Topic: SLIM DEVICES Squeeze box

[Daryan]

Following up...the mods I have done thus far are strictly based on the power supply, an all out assult really that takes the unit towards world class sound-wise.  I also have the beta model from Bolder with digital mods, and will be doing analog mods sometime soon.  I will start a new thread and post pics and suggestions later this week.  Just a heads up, the power supply I built has more $$$ in parts than the sb3 costs!

D~

[L Ron Hoover]

Not to sound like an ass, but what difference would the power supply make if I'm just using the digi out on the SB?

[Daryan]

I do not understand the theory behind it at all, for that you would need to pick others brains.  However, you will find just about everyone who has upgraded the power supply using just the digital out has heard extreme differnces.  It really and truly is night and day.  I only use the digital out as well, so I can verify what they are hearing as well.  Go to the bolder forum at audiocicrle and read, that's about all I have.

[todd e]

i've had a squeezebox for two years now and i love it.  the price was steep for v1, but since i don't have to burn audio CDs it was well worth it.
i'm having a hard time accessing external drives, the mapped drive feature just doesn't cut it.

[it-goes-to-eleven]

i'm having a hard time accessing external drives, the mapped drive feature just doesn't cut it.

FWIW, I use symbolic links under linux to map 9 drives.  Works great.

[Brian Skalinder]

i'm having a hard time accessing external drives, the mapped drive feature just doesn't cut it.

FWIW, I use symbolic links under linux to map 9 drives.  Works great.

FWIW, I'm using Win2K and am able to map external drives.  In fact, ALL my music is now on external drives.  I very vaguely (in other words, maybe I didn't do it after all) recall originally trying to map to the UNC/share name (//computername/sharename), and that didn't work.  So I mapped a drive letter and specify it and the directory (h:/audio/collection/live/).  Works fine for me, now.

[Daryan]

Brian,

That overnight file is in some strange format.  How do you open it?

Thanks

D~

[Brian Skalinder]

That overnight file is in some strange format.  How do you open it?

I assume you're talking about the file mwz linked:

http://www.slimdevices.com/downloads/nightly/SlimServer_v2006-09-19/SlimServer_v2006-09-19.noarch.rpm

Rather than work out how to use the package manager file above, just go to the nightly download page, navigate to the date you wish, and then download the appropriate file for your config.  For example, if you're running Windows, download the Windows Executable file listed.

[L Ron Hoover]

I do not understand the theory behind it at all, for that you would need to pick others brains.  However, you will find just about everyone who has upgraded the power supply using just the digital out has heard extreme differnces.  It really and truly is night and day.  I only use the digital out as well, so I can verify what they are hearing as well.  Go to the bolder forum at audiocicrle and read, that's about all I have.

$750 for a DC power supply? Holy crap!!! What voltage does it (the SB) take? I would think powering it off of an SLA battery would work just as well. No?

[it-goes-to-eleven]

$750 for a DC power supply? Holy crap!!! What voltage does it (the SB) take? I would think powering it off of an SLA battery would work just as well. No?

Holy cow indeed. Since we're talking about digital output in this case, the difference in output could be quantified..

I think that would be very interesting..  What percent of the samples are different and by how much, etc.

[Daryan]

That overnight file is in some strange format.  How do you open it?

I assume you're talking about the file mwz linked:

http://www.slimdevices.com/downloads/nightly/SlimServer_v2006-09-19/SlimServer_v2006-09-19.noarch.rpm

Rather than work out how to use the package manager file above, just go to the nightly download page, navigate to the date you wish, and then download the appropriate file for your config.  For example, if you're running Windows, download the Windows Executable file listed.

Thanks so much, very appreciated Brian.

[Daryan]

I do not understand the theory behind it at all, for that you would need to pick others brains.  However, you will find just about everyone who has upgraded the power supply using just the digital out has heard extreme differnces.  It really and truly is night and day.  I only use the digital out as well, so I can verify what they are hearing as well.  Go to the bolder forum at audiocicrle and read, that's about all I have.

$750 for a DC power supply? Holy crap!!! What voltage does it (the SB) take? I would think powering it off of an SLA battery would work just as well. No?

Lots of reasons it is $750.00.  The jensen caps are 50 bucks a pop, and I know Wayne is using at least 2 if not three.  He also uses very expensive Nitro wire as well as a lot of rather esoteric tweaky parts, not unlike the one I made.  I believe he also is using bybee filters in the MKII, but I am not sure on that.  Each unit probably takes upwards of 10 hours in labor to put together correctly, and that is knowing what you are doing.  For the rest of us it takes 3 months   Add that to R+D and I would guess product margin is roughly 50% give or take.

Voltage is 5v dc.  Battery power would work, but im my erperience limits dynamics YMMV.  That said, it would take quite a bit more than just a %V battery to make this work.  You would still need a voltage regulator, smoothing caps, etc to maintain a constant signal.  The sb3 is quite picky.

[L Ron Hoover]

What about wired vs. wireless? Have you noticed a difference in sound that way? I'm on the fence about getting one of these, or just getting a computer for the living room.

[Daryan]

I have read that there is no discernible difference.  However, I have never run the unit wired other than to test whether it worked.  To get the best sound from a computer you are going to need ultra quiet hard drives, ultra fast processers, lots of high speed RAM etc.  I was on the fence about this too until I heard the squeezebox. 

They have a 30 day return policy I think. 

[it-goes-to-eleven]

These are way better than a computer.  The remote and display are great.. I love listening to a random playlist and when something comes up that I want to hear, I just de-shuffle the playlist by pressing a button and it continues with that cd/show.

They do have a 30 day return policy..   Have you tried the server software?   It is all free. You can use it with 'softsqueeze' and it will emulate the actual hardware.  If you're thinking about doing it, you might as well get started with the software. These things hold their value pretty well, so you could always sell it.

Unlike most any other product, it is continuously being developed and improved.. They're releasing a pretty major improvement to the software this week. That version is in final beta.

I ran mine wired for years and ran on wireless for a couple years.  I now run wired.  My sb3 is directly connected to my amp so there is no way I'd risk wireless.  Ethernet cables can be up to 300', BTW.

I did the wireless before they offered that feature by using a linksys bridge (ethernet to wireless adapter). That was on the first gen slimdevices hardware (pretty crude, mp3 only). The wireless was really solid and worked great.. But that was with mp3's that required far less bandwidth than 24 bit files..

A couple years ago we had issues getting an sb2 wireless version to work reliably with a friend's windows based system.  We didn't want to spend much time on it and after some effort debugging just used a cable.

A few years back they switched from a UDP based protocol to TCP.  Basically, if the data gets there it will be correct and bit perfect, even on wireless.  But you could still have interference that would stop the music once the buffer is completely empty.